I have Comcast Business 12mbit/2mbit with 5 static IP's. It runs off a SMC 8014 gateway.

Good points: * Customer support is good over the phone * You can get static IP's with your own reverse DNS * It's fast.

Bad points: * Some questionable coordination * The SMC 8014 isn't very configurable or flexible; I'd rather use a modem/bridge and my own router/firewall * Occasional downtime for maintenance that's unannounced, you shouldn't expect to be running servers with high 9's availability.

They make you sign a contract for service. This works out well for both parties in that you get a guaranteed rate for the life of the contract and they get a customer for a fixed period.

Comcast Business uses authenticated RIPv2 to announce customer routes. This requires a specialized configuration in the modem; they won't give customers the key, so you're stuck with their gateway.

I had a spot of trouble with my SMC8014 which required a replacement. They came out and replaced the unit with no issue. Unfortunately, they put the old modem back into the pool for distribution. A few weeks later, they attempted to install the old modem and hadn't cleared its memory. Both the old modem and the new modem battled each other for my static IP block. I called the support line, who diagnosed the tug-of-war between the modems in just a few minutes. She got the installer with the old modem on the phone and got him to reset the old modem -- poof, no more problem.

I've been happy with Comcast's email support as well. I had a 1 minute turnaround (not kidding) on an email request for a reverse DNS change on a Sunday afternoon. That's pretty amazing.

Overall, I give Comcast a 4/5 on all categories.

member for 14.2 years, 1367 visits, last login: 2.6 years agoupdated 4.6 years ago

I ordered the 22/5 Mbps package with one static IP. Install was fairly painless, but was immediately followed by an outage. The process of changing from a residential account to a business account cause some of Comcast records to reflect my line shouldn't be connected and caused the audit teams to disconnect my line twice. When the line has been connected it has been 100% reliable. Tech support is much better than residential support, but some of the agents weren't familiar with the SMC DOCSIS-3 gateway Comcast provides. The management of some of the services could be improved with either allowing changes or improving the interface of the web management portal. Overall, I'm quite a bit happier as a workplace customer than I was as a residential customer.

member for 14.1 years, 927 visits, last login: 319 days agolodged 4.8 years ago

My Other Reviews

For free install most sales reps wanted me to sign a three year contract. After playing sales rep roulette a few times, I found someone that would give me free install with a one year contract.

Service has been superb. I have no need for a static IP (dyndns is fine) so I selected the bare minimum business plan for my home office. Setup was quick and easy and the tech worked to get the signal levels nearly perfect. Obviously being a shared medium, there is some type of download cap but being a business customer it is higher than the 250G residential cap.

My only complaint is the cheap SMC 8014 router/modem that they provide. It would be nice if they offered other models that you could upgrade to. Make the 8014 the default free model but add a couple higher end units that you could pay for. The 8014 is really more of a residential type router/modem and it does not offer bridge mode.

Service is 12/2 and w/ Powerboost (20/6?) is there for this quick small downloads.

member for 13.8 years, 6300 visits, last login: 1 days agoupdated 4.9 years ago

I have the 12/2 package with 1 static IP. The package costs $59.99, and the static IP costs an additional $14.95 per month.

I've been using the connection for about one week. So far everything works as expected. One thing to note is that Comcast's internal network seems to have some packet loss problems. This is mostly seen when data goes cross-county. I never experienced that with my DSL connection.

Overall, though, I'm happy with the connection.

Comcast is also starting to move toward IPv6. I consider this a major plus.

member for 14.5 years, 5819 visits, last login: a few hours agoupdated 5 years ago

10/09 Run a small business from my home and moved to Comcast due to DSL issues caused by excessive loop length. Implemented 20/5 service with static IP very successfully. Service has been stable to date and performance consistent. Speed is very solid but there is a higher latency than I was used to on AT&T DSL. Not objectionable but different. Will update after I have had a longer experience.

01/10 With three months of service under my belt, I'm convinced that Comcast's business grade service is the real deal. I've seen very little issues with congestion or spotty performance. In every way, the experience has been similar to my DSL experience but much, much faster. Only complaint is that latency has been slightly higher than I experienced with AT&T DSL, mostly due to additional hops. Run VOIP traffic over it without issue and jitter is minimal.

member for 11.4 years, 328 visits, last login: 2.1 years agoupdated 5.1 years ago

I upgraded to the DOCSIS 50/5 service when it first launched in 2008 here in the Twin Cities and started to rethink some of my hosting infrastructure once the 22/5 business plan was offered for a $99.95 base price here in the metro.

In Feb 2009 I converted from residential to business services on the 22/5 service with a routed netblock. Prior to having business services I was colo'ing hardware in Chicago and Dallas for hosting purposes, with Dallas having DRBD sync'd filesystems of the Chicago node so that it could take over operations with a simple DNS change should Chicago become unreachable for any reason. The great part of this system is with automated DNS failover most users never know when an outage occurs -- the obvious downside is the cost. With the Comcast business connection I was able to pull the Dallas hardware back home and still preserve the file system replication and failover capabilities. With the business static netblocks Comcast supports setting custom PTR records, so I was able to get everything to line up for email server failover. While definitely not the same as a 100mbps datacenter connection, the 5mbps up service is enough to keep critical services like email going in the event of a primary server outage to keep such an event from turning into a disaster for my users. (mostly friends and family who have my direct cell phone number)

In the months I've had Comcast Business services I've had 2 brief outages. One was traced back to an amplifier that had failed in my neighborhood. I had phoned in the ticket at 2am on a Tuesday, a tech showed up right away at 8am to check levels both inside my house and at the tap and said he would open a ticket with the maintenance group. I left for work, went to a hockey game afterwards, and by the time I got home at 10pm there was a tag on my door saying the maintenance crew had resolved the issue and had a phone number to call if I had further problems. Having had a similar problem back in 2004 that took weeks to resolve, I was beyond impressed that they got everything resolved in under 24 hours.

The other outage was due to a failure of the supplied SMCD3G gateway one evening. Similar deal -- it failed early in the morning one day and a phone call to business services had someone at my house by 8am the same day to swap the device out.

Overall I couldn't be happier with the service. It does everything I need it to and the Business Class support is absolutely great.

member for 13.8 years, 4596 visits, last login: a few hours agoupdated 5.1 years ago

I bought the $75 triple play deal a couple of months ago. I'm paying $90. Also, Digital voice has failed 3 times in 2 months, data has failed 3 times. One outage was a couple of hours. Installer gave the impression of being very overworked and did a sloppy (but adequate ) job.

Tech Support simply could not or would not configure their router to bridge (or route through) to my router so I am double-NATed until I reconfigure my stuff or learn to program their router.

I told the guy who called to check up on me that I was very dissatisfied, me made a great show of dismay, promised a call from the supervisor, it never came.

I was told by Comcast tech support to move my 802.11G router at least 2' away from the ATA to resolve Digital Voice problems (dropouts, etc). I found out on my own that the problem was causes by proximity of my GSM Cell phone to a 80s era touch-tone phone which somehow coupled the GSM signal into the Comcast ATA and caused it to act up frequently. Someone isn't meeting published standards, I suspect. I bet the fault is not with the touch-tone phone.

I will probably try and live with Comcast, but I will keep an eye out for a better alternative and will bail without a qualm as soon as I find one.

member for 12.1 years, 26 visits, last login: 5.1 years agolodged 5.2 years ago

Overall, Comcast is a decent ISP. Installation went well, although the installer didn't know I was supposed to have a static IP (or what a static IP was, for that matter). Latency is low a good amount of the time, but after a while things will slow to a crawl, eventually requiring a modem reset. Tech support has been a mixed bag. Some reps know a lot, some only know their script. Most are somewhere in between.

UPDATE June 29, 2009

On June 27, we had a lightning storm, which ended up frying the modem. So I called in and scheduled a modem swap for the next day. A pretty simple process, and one that should take little to no effort (other than a few minutes provisioning the new device and setting up its static IPs). We were signed up for the 11 to 3 window. For some reason, it took Comcast until 4:45 PM to even tell us when a tech would arrive. It then took another 30 minutes for the tech to actually arrive and swap the modem. That wasn't what I had a problem with, though. I had to call in at least 15 times throughout the day before I was able to speak with the local dispatcher; other than that, the only contact that I had with Comcast was through the phone reps in Philadelphia.

On a side note: I should have been able to swap the device myself by bringing it to the local office like any residential customer can. The fact that I can't is thoroughly annoying. It would have saved us at least 8 hours of downtime, which, as a business that relies heavily on the internet, would have been very beneficial.

member for 6.2 years, 311 visits, last login: 97 days agoupdated 5.6 years ago